The Senate has defended the purchase of 360 Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) for its members, saying the lawmakers are more considerate than ministers using 4 official cars.
Recall that the Senate has come under criticism after reports on the planned purchase of 360 SUVs worth N57.6 billion for the lawmakers emerged last week. The unit value of each vehicle was pegged at N160 million.
A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) last week asked the Federal High Court, Lagos, to restrain the lawmakers from going ahead with the purchase of the vehicles pending the hearing and determination of its applications for injunction on the matter.
The Chairman of the Committee on Senate Services, Sunday Karimi, who addressed journalists at a media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, decried the criticism trailing the announcement on the purchase of the vehicles.
He lamented that Nigerians were picking on lawmakers but ignoring ministers who have more than four official vehicles.
Karimi, who was silent on the actual cost of each vehicle, said the lawmakers preferred the imported SUVs to locally manufactured ones.
He said: “We know ministers with more than three Land Cruisers, Prado, and other vehicles, and Nigerians are not asking them questions, why us?
“These vehicles that you see, go to Nigeria roads today, If I go home once, my senatorial district, I come back spending a lot on my vehicles because our roads are bad.
“I said the decision that we took on using Land Cruiser is the cost and durability.
“Before they came up with this, it was not the decisions of the senators alone, we analysed the situation and arrived at Land Cruisers.
“It was based on a comparative analysis of the cost of technical issues and durability on Nigerian roads.
”We want something that we can maintain for another four years and the issue of buying vehicles from the National Assembly, you know it is a recurring issue, it occurs every assembly, it will always come up.”
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